


Better Off This Way

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someday I'll walk away and say "You disappoint me." Maybe you're better off this way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Off This Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tristesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/gifts).



> Title and summary from A Perfect Circle's "Passive."

I hear the crowds, and they think they hurt me.

I sit in the tower and look down over the courtyard at my sister's coronation. I know DG expects me to be there, but the people don't want me. They look at me and see the Sorceress; as often as DG tells everyone I was possessed, they don't hear it. They don't want to hear it. They cling to their hatred, and it was only too clear after the Double Eclipse that I could never be Queen. It's just as well. I don't want the throne anymore. No one believes that, of course, but I don't want it. I tell everyone that I can't remember what it was like to be possessed, but that's a lie. I remember everything, and I wrap the memories around me like a shroud. My children are gone, and I no longer feel their hearts beating beneath my skin. I'm alone now, no one to talk to about magic or politics or the mechanisms of human emotion. No one in the palace trusts me but DG, but she doesn't know any better. She doesn't know to be afraid of me.

I lean against the glass, my eyes sliding closed. I know how the ceremony goes. I had been studying it ever since I turned ten, long before we ever knew of the Witch, long before she slid beneath my skin and became the Sorceress inside of me.

"Princess. You're required downstairs."

Not wanted. _Required._

"Of course I'm not," I say in an even tone. There's no point in showing weakness. There's no point in acknowledging pain. It would be another way for them to hurt me, another way for them to gloat and lord it over. They already think I'm weak, and they hate me more than enough already. There's no reason to make it easy for them.

Jeb Cain walks into the tower room I use. I call it my bedroom, but it's a prison as much as a bedroom. DG assigned him to me, and I find it horribly ironic. One of the leaders of the Resistance, his entire life before the Double Eclipse had been to take me off the throne. Now his job is to watch over me and make sure I stay off of it.

I don't think the irony escapes him, either.

He alone assumes an easy familiarity with me. He calls me Princess, as that's my title, but there's no respect or fear in his voice. He strides into my room as if he owns it, as if he owns _me,_ and he slides his hands along my arms and makes me shiver. I remember other hands doing that, other voices in my ear. They curried favor with the Sorceress, but none had cared for _me._

In his own twisted way, I think Jeb does. I don't know how I feel about this.

He turns me and pins me against the glass, the crowds below cheering for my Slipper sister. His mouth crashes down on mine, his hands tight on my arms. The sleeves hide the inevitable bruises; I think he likes marking me to remind me that he's the only one privileged enough to touch me. He's the only one that wants to, the only one not afraid of me. _I see you,_ he told me the first time we were alone together. Jeb had looked at me in wonder, as if he had never believed he would ever look me in the eye. I hadn't either. Sometimes I still wonder if I'm dreaming, and this is all just a cruel joke the Sorceress is playing on me. DG never came back to save us all, and the OZ is drowned in darkness.

Jeb's mouth devours me whole and steals what little breath I had. "Come to the ceremony. It would make your sister happy," he tells me, as if his tongue wasn't just inside my lips. "The others don't care," he says, brutally honest as always. "But she does. She'll be hurt if you're not there with her."

I think of her hand in mine, the night of the eclipse. The Sorceress gave her no reason to care, but she still came after me. She still saved her memories of me, the fractured bits that might still remain somewhere. I choke back a sob and cling to Jeb, as if his body is the only thing keeping me upright. Maybe it is. It has only been months since the Double Eclipse, and I'm still finding my way. In some aspects, I'm still the child the Witch had possessed. In others, I carry the power of the Sorceress beneath my skin. I feel her sometimes, crawling around my mind or laughing behind my eyelids. I wonder if DG can see it, if Jeb can. Maybe that's why he marks me, to remind me that this is real and not the Sorceress' hateful words.

I think I'm waiting for the world to end. I wonder why it hasn't yet.

"Azkadellia," Jeb whispers against my lips, hands gentling on my arms. "Come with me to the ceremony. I'll stand by your side the entire time."

I don't know how this happened, how our lives twined around each other. I thought my life was tied to my sister's, that our hearts were nestled inside each others'. I know I'll fail him, as I've failed everyone else, and I'm terrified he's going to find out. He'll wake up and see how damaged I truly am, and then I really will be alone. Maybe someday I'll gather up the courage to send him away, before he destroys himself with me. Maybe someday, but that day is not today.

"Yes," I tell him softly, and he escorts me to the coronation ceremony.


End file.
